With its Sunday afternoon road victory over then-No.2 Brandeis, the Washington University men’s basketball team finds itself in a familiar position: number one in the nation.
The weekly D3hoops.com Top 25 poll, released Monday evening, rewarded the Bears for their two road wins last weekend over New York University and Brandeis. Wash. U. received 11 out of a possible 25 first place votes in the Web site’s tenth poll of the 2007-2008 campaign. It is the 14th time in the poll’s nine year history that Wash. U. has held the top spot.
Having returned four starters from a squad which reached last year’s Division III Final Four, Wash. U. earned the nation’s number one ranking in the website’s pre-season poll, but a loss to Calvin College on the first weekend of the regular season dropped the Red and Green from the top spot.
The season-ending injury of All-American point guard Sean Wallis three days later had prognosticators doubting Wash. U.’s post-season chances and a loss to Augustana College on Nov. 24 only helped confirm such suspicions. The Bears fell to eighth in the first regular season poll and later dropped to 12th.
But Wash. U. has yet to lose a game since the Augustana setback, having run off 12 straight wins, including their first five league contests. The Bears are the only UAA team to open the grueling league schedule undefeated, since previously undefeated and national number one Rochester was shocked in overtime by an upset-minded Emory team last Friday in Atlanta.
The Yellow Jackets slipped two places in this week’s poll to No.3. Brandeis, who, in addition to losing to Wash. U. was stunned at home by the University of Chicago last Friday, fell all the way to ninth in the poll.
The UAA is the only conference in Division III with more than one member school holding a spot in the national top ten.
Ironically, the Bears’ next game is against last week’s No. 1 team and current No. 3, Rochester. Tip off is set for 8 p.m. Eastern time in upstate New York. Regardless of Friday’s result, Wash. U. will get another crack at Rochester the following weekend when the Yellow Jackets come to St. Louis for an early-afternoon affair on Sunday, Feb. 10 at the Field House.
Should Wash. U. be defeated on Friday, Rochester would likely regain its number one ranking and Wash. U. would almost assuredly not fall past third in the poll. The chance of a No. 1 vs. No. 2 match-up in the Field House a week from Sunday looms as a legitimate possibility.
Sad that you can’t go to New York this weekend to watch the basketball teams battle highly ranked UAA foe University of Rochester? Go to http://bearsports.wustl.edu where you can link to live stats, a live radio broadcast and a live telecast to stay up to the minute on all the action.